Evidence brief (Ministry of Justice), July 2016

First edition completed: January 2014
Second edition completed: July 2016

This brief uses the generic term ‘perpetrator’ to refer to all those who commit violent offences against family members, regardless of whether those offences are reported.
 Family violence perpetrators serving a prison or community sentence are dealt with by Corrections, which provides them with one of four types of service depending on the level of risk and broader needs of each individual.
 There is also a range of community providers who deliver specialist family violence programmes under contract from a range of Government agencies.
 The international evidence is mixed and does not allow us to conclude that the services provided by these community providers are effective.
 However, Corrections has evaluated three of the four types of service it provides to or funds for family violence perpetrators and have found that all of these programmes lead to statistically significant reductions in re-imprisonment.
 Further research would be desirable to confirm that the success Corrections has had in reducing reimprisonment is also achieved by the community-based programmes. (From the overview). Record #5640